Stores and malls that want to track you still have options - perhaps the most obvious one is to offer free wifi to their customers. Which is probably a win-win situation, although most users probably won't realise that part of the price of the "free" wifi is that they get tracked until they tell their device to forget the network again. There might be some subtle biases introduced into the data captured by this method if some kinds of customer are more likely to accept the offer of free wifi than others, mind you.

This happens every time a popular website (or application) is updated with a redesigned UI. The fact that thousands of users are complaining tells you nothing about whether the average user finds the site easier to use. The fact that people are posting here on Slashdot to say that they personally dislike it also tells you nothing. Fundamentally, people hate having change imposed on them, particularly if they don't know or agree with the reasons for it. And frankly even if Yahoo's existing users overwhelmingly hated the new design, it could still be the right decision for the company - they need to attract new users from other services, not satisfy their existing dwindling base.

This is just the latest occasion when I have wished that/. editors would, you know, do some editing. The story is interesting; the attempt by the submitter to spin it as evidence of a particular viewpoint adds nothing.

All legal jurisdictions are having to come to terms with the fact that groups of people in social networks now have the ability to publish (mis)information on a scale that was previously limited to mainstream media outlets. This effort from the UK authorities is (in my opinion) a reasonably balanced one, that does a good job of extending the existing British consensus on where the line should be drawn between free speech and criminal irresponsibility into the modern era.

To be fair, this is two staff from the PR department doing the tweeting, not front-line police officers. Given the publicity they've received in return for those two person-days of effort, it seems like pretty good value to me.